Inslee hopes bridge collapse opens eyes of lawmakers in Olympia

BURLINGTON — Gov. Jay Inslee announced plans to fix the old Skagit River Bridge in just three weeks and totally replace the bridge by November.

It took only seconds to destroy a chunk of the Skagit River Bridge. A semi colliding with several beams sent one entire section crumbling down.

On Sunday, Governor Inslee announced an ambitious plan to restore I-5 in Skagit County.

“Our department of transportation has developed a plan that we believe has a very good chance of restoring traffic across the river on the I-5 corridor within weeks,” Inslee said.

Authorities hope to have it in place and traffic flowing again by mid-June, but it’s only a band aid. A new bridge will be constructed next to the old one and replace it by September.

“We’re going to get this project done as fast as humanly possible,” Inslee said. “There’s no more important issue to the economy, to the state of Washington frankly, than getting the bridge up and running.”

Most of the tab will be picked up by the federal government, but the first step in the process is cleanup and that has drawn dozens of sightseers.

Steve Bounds has lived in Burlington all his life. He knows the importance of the bridge and is hopeful for the fix.

1 Comment

mark98201

When liberals claim that there is not enough money for basic highway maintenance and capacity improvements, they are always lying.

The latest example of incredible waste is the explosive highway construction in the Cascade Mountains for yet another I-90 reconfiguration, one of several in recent years, with this current $1billion effort really to appease environmentalists who want to create 'wildlife corridors'.

WSDOT and the Washington State Legislature need to stop endlessly reconfiguring I-90 and Seattle so that we can spend elsewhere on far more desperate capacity and safety issues.

If you watch the attached video using the link below, you will see WSDOT detonating perfectly good concrete roadway because it just wasn't quite perfect enough.